For almost 25 years, John Andrew Fredrick and a revolving cast of characters have been issuing records as the Black Watch. The California-based indie-rock institution is back with 11th album Led Zeppelin Five (Powertool), and it’s the first LP to feature the rock-solid lineup of Fredrick, guitarist Steven Schayer (ex-Chills), bassist Chris Rackford and drummer Rick Woodard. When Fredrick isn’t busy writing and recording songs, he’s teaching English at the University of California, so we thought he’d a be a natural choice to guest edit the MAGNET website. Fredrick, with some assistance from Schayer, will be doing exactly that all week. Read our brand new Q&A with Fredrick.
Fredrick: The mp3 here of “Birthday” from Chandler‘s band is one of the songs on an upcoming split EP (with the Ultra Violet, a California band fronted by my girlfriend Kesha “Kay” Rose) on our label, Eskimo. When they ask, I tell people that the offspring’s songs are kinda Elliott Smith (without all the sadness, the looming doom) meets Smashing Pumpkins (without the pomp). He just did what every sensible kid in his early 20s should do: He quit his well-paying but extra-soulless post-college “yob” and moved to Brooklyn in order to play music and starve. Chandler doesn’t want his picture anywhere near his music, he wants the vocals low, his nicely crafted harmonies cut from the mix, and his main goal is to please his musician friends. So much for sales! Hey, kid: You don’t have to try to be obscure, let me tell you. The Black Watch have been doing it effortlessly for ages, Me, I want his mug all over the world (his mom was/is very beautiful, and he’s by all accounts very photogenic), his thoughtful-painterly lyrics heard and his Pitchforky friends to fuck right off. I was in the studio when he was working the songs out with our longtime producer Scott Campbell. Without trying, I got monikered “Stage Dad.” It was a joke, though. I didn’t play on his stuff or make any arrangement suggestions or pick up a Jazzmaster or want to be involved in the mixes. I was there to cheerlead, a role I play well with all my artist acquaintance. I even vacated during the vocals and went to a bar and got epically drunk. What a great father, huh?! The sacrifices one makes for nepotism. Yet Scott and Chipper call me “Stage Dad” just because in the studio I was snapping a riding crop occasionally at them and talking non-stop in an Austrian accent! The nerve of these people.
Some other people you might when you have an idle moment—now, dammit! [snaps whip]—listen to are the following friends of TBW: Ray, a band from London who sound like a rushing, poppy but dark dark … oh I don’t want to compare them to another band. They used to be on Rough Trade—I will tell you that. And they have, capitulating to The Industry, gone and tragically changed their name to Damn Vandals, thus bringing down their dear friend John, who hates the name and loves brothers Nev and Mark Bradford (who are the band) and thinks they are insanely talented. You might like the Furious Seasons if you favor sunny, acoustic pop with impossibly catchy choruses, intermittent knife-twist lyrics and simple melodies that haunt you for days. They’re fronted by another dear friend and have also undergone a name change. They have decided to be more Americana than before. And more mainstream, which is their prerogative, I guess. The Ultra Violet sound a bit like the Sundays, but darker; a bit like Throwing Muses, but saner; a bit like Kay’s favorite band, the Black Watch, but much much prettier and sweeter. Kay’s lyrics (if you care about such things; I don’t … honestly, I only notice them if they are especially embarrassingly bad) are spooky and dreamy. She has a song on the split EP that I had a hand in penning that’s called “Shut Up” and that I hope is going to be the kiss-off anthem of 2011 or 2012.
Video after the jump.
